Why I’d Stick with GA4 (For Now)
Between 2018 and 2022, I worked as the Marketing and Communications Manager at the Museum of Vancouver. I was responsible for our website…
Why I’d Stick with GA4 (For Now)
Credit: Campaign Creators
Between 2018 and 2022, I worked as the Marketing and Communications Manager at the Museum of Vancouver. I was responsible for our website, e-commerce site, and social channels, and I was the lone staff member who really dug into web analytics to drive our decisions. Because our website was built on Squarespace, plugging in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) was incredibly straightforward. It was an easy, plug-and-play solution.
Recently, however, a Data Security, Media Law, and Media Ethics class in my Master’s program forced me to view this old, familiar routine through a much more critical lens. We were analyzing how the digital landscape has shifted, especially in Europe, to prioritize user privacy, sparking a massive debate: do we stick with industry giants like GA4, or is it time to migrate to privacy-focused alternatives like Matomo?
Through some guided research, we were tasked to examine the landmark “Schrems” rulings in Europe. The courts essentially ruled that when US tech companies transfer European personal data to American servers, that data becomes vulnerable to US intelligence surveillance.
This highlights a core issue with GA4: it is built to gather comprehensive data, collects personal identifiers like IP addresses, and sends all of it to Google’s third-party servers. Matomo, by contrast, is a privacy champion. It automatically masks user IP addresses and can be hosted directly on your own servers, meaning your data is never transferred to a third party. This table by Phil Pearce of Measured Minds Group (2025) outlines a great comparison of Matomo to GA4 and how they directly related to legal issues and pieces of legislation.
I wondered if a shift to an alternative would be possible and even feasible for an organization like the Museum. At the time, the organizaiton’s entire digital infrastructure relied on tools that were accessible, cloud-based, and highly user-friendly. GA4 checked all of those boxes perfectly, requiring very few resources and making it easy for a marketing professional like me to navigate.
Switching to Matomo would have demanded a massive operational shift. To achieve a privacy-compliant and self-hosted setup, we would have needed to hire an external web developer to build a server, secure the data ourselves, and integrate the whole system with Squarespace. Beyond the technical hurdles, taking total ownership of our data meant we would be entirely responsible for it. We would have had to dedicate serious time and resources to training the team on a new interface and enforcing strict internal guidelines on how to handle visitor data safely.
The real kicker, though, is the legal environment. The Canadian digital landscape currently operates under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). While PIPEDA outlines rules for consent, it does not apply the intense legal pressure on third-party data transfers that European businesses face, making it incredibly hard to justify the high financial and operational costs of ditching Google.
The proposed Consumer Privacy Protection Act. Image Credit: Cookie Law Info
That being said, the Canadian government has proposed the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) to modernize our framework. If passed, it would introduce stricter regulations around handling and exporting consumer data, essentially bringing Canada up to par with the EU. If that happens, the legal liabilities of using GA4 might finally outweigh its convenience.
Until we get that legislative push, as well as the budget to hire developers and secure server space, GA4 remains the most practical tool, in my opinion, for their current reality. However, this class has definitely shown me that the days of careless, plug-and-play data tracking are numbered.
Further Reading
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